


Quality Weeb Material

by Blue_ii



Category: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 05:08:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10181372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_ii/pseuds/Blue_ii





	

L  
Miss. B  
World Literature  
02/13/17  
Quality Weeb Material  
Kubo of the Two Strings is an animated film about a boy trying to find his family and defeat the evil force of his grandfather and his two aunts. Through rigorous studying of Japanese culture, clothing, and the process of claymation, Kubo of the Two Strings managed to perfectly capture Japanese aesthetic. As well as being the spitting image of the Japanese culture, the music, design, lighting, and angles portrayed ekphrasis. Kubo of the Two Strings is a perfect example of Japanese values and ekphrasis because of the Shintoism, the character design, and the familial ties.  
Over the head of Kubo, Monkey, and Beetle flew Gold Cranes, which was explained to Beetle (and consequentially the viewers) that they carry the sounds of the dead to the afterlife. During the festival Kubo and the town cast lanterns out onto a river after praying to their ancestors. Later in the movie, when Kubo fights his grandfather, the spirits of the dead inside the lamps come out and help Kubo. All of the above were examples of the presence of Shintoism in the film. Shintoism is also shown in a general sense by the amount of spirits and deities that live in all the aspects of the films. The birds, the stars, the river, all of the living aspects of the world of Kubo are full of spirits. Since shintoism if such an influence upon ancient Japanese culture and Japanese culture today, the movie had a great portrayal of it.  
The characters for animated films are usually extremely stylized to get across points about a character without having to directly say them to the viewer. This is prominent in Kubo of the Two Strings in the designs of Beetle, the Old Woman, The Aunts, and Kubo himself. In Japanese lore that surrounds the samurai, a beetle is usually used to represent the armor and head piece of the samurai’s clothing. The comic relief character, Beetle, ties together samurai's and the samurai beetle by actually being a legitimate samurai beetle. The old woman who we see in the town with Kubo in one of the beginning scenes shows off Japanese aesthetic in a much less in your face way in which she wears a kimono of a rarely used blue color that was a Japanese dye. The evil aunts to Kubo wear Koh masks to conceal their faces, which are a type of mask frequently used in a certain type of theater that originated and is popular in Japan. Kubo himself wears a kimono, a samurai beetle on the back which ties into Japanese culture. Clothing and how it is made and portrayed reflects very directly to the culture it came from, and the design in characters clothes and bodies in the film are consistent with Japanese culture as well as using appearance to tell a story, which is also known as exphrasis.  
Everything in the movie’s plot ties and is motivated by the theme of family. Starting with the opening scene of Kubo helping his almost comatose mother eat and sit by the seashore, Kubo demonstrates his caring and tenderness for her. When the festival arrives, Kubo risks his life by staying after dark to pray for his father. When he ‘loses’ his mother, he forms a new familial bond with Beetle and Monkey, who then turn out to be his lost parents. He fights his grandfather and how his grandfather wants Kubo to be just like him and Kubo’s “real family” (his aunts and grandfather). In fact, the grandfather’s desire for Kubo to be with him drive the fear and rush for the plot to keep moving. Familial ties are an incredibly important thing in Japan, and especially the nuclear family. Having family being a major theme throughout Kubo and the Two Strings whoed how close the film was to authentic Japanese culture.  
The western portrayal of Japanese culture in the film, Kubo and the Two Strings was incredibly well at both the incorporation of Japanese Culture and story telling through the method of ekphrasis. With fantastic character design, emphasis on Shintoism, as well as the big theme of familial ties, Kubo is a great representation of not only Japanese culture, but also ekphrasis.


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